Great Expectations
by a veritable iron rose
Summary: Jonathan hadn't had any expectations when he entered into a relationship with Selina Kyle. He hadn't expected to have had such an interesting life with her either. Completed one-shot.


Jonathan hadn't had any expectations when he entered into a relationship with Selina Kyle. To him, nothing in his life had changed besides the new explorations into intimacy and the new secrets between him and the petite thief that burned beneath his skin. He hadn't expected to change for her just because of some passing feelings, or vice versa, because god knew Selina Kyle wasn't a girl who would change anything about herself for a man, and he was too closed up to ever change for a girl. Their relationship was nothing more than just that — something that added to the spice of their lives as budding villains with dual identities. Sure, they were lovers now; lovers with clashing tempers and sure-fire sarcasm and teeth that bit deep. Sure, he knew that he was registered in her phone as simply 'Crow' like it always had been, not 'Jonathan' or anything near to an affectionate equivalent. But this was high school; they both knew that feelings like this were impassioned and short lived and that they shouldn't expect anything out of it. So he didn't.

He knew that what they did or didn't do behind closed doors would never see broad daylight, and that if ever confronted that Selina would always deny anything she might or might not feel for him because girls like her hooked up with guys like Bruce Wayne, and guys like him were supposed to only dream of having a girl like this in their beds. He knew that whatever it was that they had didn't amount to any tangible feelings that came anywhere near to affection (or god forbid, love) but were only the manifestations of two horny teenagers expressing their lust in secretive touches here and there; in passing on the staircases, with flushing necks under desks in the middle of class, in the shadows of locked broom cupboards. But _God_, if there was any real feeling behind these heated kisses, these stolen moments of illicit pleasure, Jonathan wanted them to never end. He hadn't known that a person could be kissed like this; all teeth and searching tongues and nerves screaming _yes, yes, yes_.

He hadn't known what it would feel like to finally have Selina's fingers wound in the perpetual mop that was his hair, her eyes closed and her lips clashing so desperately with his in a fevered dance that lit every synapse in his body. He hadn't known what it would like to be to have his fingers clutched into the sudden dip of her waist, to feel the sharp contours of her hips under the pads of his fingers, or to feel the gentle swells of her breasts pressing into the edges of his ribs, all curves against sharpness. He hadn't expected to ever feel this display of fireworks in his blood that sizzled and crackled and hissed like the morning breaths of lovers whispering sweet nothings, or to taste that morning's cinnamon buns on the subtle curves of Selina's lips and the crisp sweetness of mint toothpaste on the backs of her teeth, reverberating off the tastebuds of her tongue onto his with a crash and a bang.

Everything was teeth and tongue and lust bundled into trying to be quiet together in the depths of the night, of late night fantasies and secretive smiles. Everything was _her_, just zinging in his brain like a sparkler lit in the hand of a small child — all flash and sizzle and memories of bright lights against the backs of his eyelids. Jonathan had never had any expectations about what it would be like to kiss Selina Kyle — to have her kiss back with sighing lips and content eyes and groping hands in the back of a classroom — he'd never had any expectations about what it would be like to wake up to cinnamon breath and contemplative brown eyes in his bed — _in his bed, not Bruce's!_ — or to fall asleep to whispered confessions and fingers tangled in hair and sweet skin pressed against his.

She didn't complete him; _not yet, not quite, not ever_ — but she complemented him in the sharp witticisms that dripped off her honey-sweet tongue, in the way she held her own in a fight with quick fists and a razor mind to match, in the way she let him see her when she was screaming out of her mind because she was reliving demons from her past that crept out of the cage of her chest to roost in her mind at night. And he didn't complete her; _wouldn't, couldn't, shouldn't_ — but she let him come damn close and that was all that he asked. He'd never had any expectations about Selina Kyle, simply because whatever he would have thought of would never have even touched the surface of this brilliantly tenacious woman that had swept into his life with a smirk and a meow, and stolen his heart almost as fast as he'd broken her mind (which had only happened once out of curiosity) — which was to say it took two years and several break-ins at the school laboratories.

He'd never had any expectations about this dark eyed thief simply because he'd never expected to ever achieve what he'd gotten to now. So when he sighed three little words into her mouth with the promise of a forever he couldn't guarantee wedged between teeth and tongue and firecrackers still going _yes-yes-yes_, he hadn't expected her to sigh them back with all the heaviness that those little words carried with the weight of her trust in him. In that moment, he felt his heart constrict behind the iron bars that were his ribs, felt the leaden air in his lungs stop their perpetual inhale and exhale, felt the blood humming on fire through his veins stop buzzing. He'd had this enormous fear that if he let her have her independence, that if he let her fly that she might fly away from him with his trust and his secrets. But he let go of it now and only focused on how he felt infinite when he was with her. When they graduated Gotham High, Selina had gathered her things and she'd left with him — and over his shoulder, Jonathan had seen the subtlest hint of jealousy in Bruce Wayne's eyes. Who would have thought it? The most popular boy in school jealous of that grungy little hipster kid. But Jonathan was the one who left with Selina, and Jonathan was the one who'd gotten Selina's confession of affection. _Not Bruce. Never Bruce_.

Maybe it was stupid and naive of him that three little words whispered into crashing teeth and dueling tongues by a little boy who'd only known restrictions and terror and agony would ensure that the flighty bird he held so dangerously close to his heart would stay — but she'd said them back. _She'd said them back!_ And then they were getting married and their friends were getting knocked up and everyone was in this post-party bliss that only forebode destruction — but none of them had listened. They'd all never given up on the crafts that they'd honed throughout their teenage years; all of them artists in their chosen trades, whatever they might be whether it be stealing or blowing things up or going into eco-terrorism.

They'd all spent more time logged in the cells of Arkham Asylum, laughing and so together in the sense that for once, most of the Rogues in the Gallery were content — Harley was having a kid, the Joker had blown up half of Gotham again in celebration, Pam and Harvey were trying out a relationship (again), and Jonathan and Selina were married. But then of course there were people like Jervis who'd gone through yet another Alice only to be disappointed, or Killer Croc who'd had to be dealt with when he'd ingested another mutagen. They'd all spent more time together than they'd ever done, even in high school when they were all sequestered in dorms and cliques; and content was a word that fluttered lightly on the tips of all their tongues when asked how they were doing. No longer was it merely_ I'm doing okay_, or _I'm still alive_. It was the closest thing they had to happiness. Jonathan learned that maybe it wasn't so hard to let someone in, and Selina learned that maybe it was possible for someone as broken and used as she was to love. Oh, what a tragic mistake it had been.

Content only loosened their inhibitions, and when the Joker suggested a crime spree to end all crime sprees that involved all the villains; of course they had all agreed! Selina had slipped into her catsuit with ease despite the new swell of her stomach and Jonathan remembered the crimson slash of her lips as she donned her mask. She'd whispered one more promise to him just before she'd leaped off the roof to meet Harley and Pamela, and that had been that. They were needed at separate sides of the city, and Scarecrow took over. He hadn't been there to witness the victorious crows of his wife and her closest friends in the aftermath of their destruction amidst their completed part of the plan, and he hadn't been there to witness the squeals as Selina's lips curled into her customary smirk when she divulged her news to her friends. He hadn't expected anything to happen after that, and he should have.

The memory made his heart grow even heavier with the burden that it carried as Jonathan opened his eyes, still sitting in the uncomfortable chair pulled up to the side of a hospital bed, nose filled with the acid smell that all hospitals had and eyes stinging with an emptiness he'd thought he'd forgotten how to feel. His fingers were tangled with the limp hand of the woman of cinnamon smiles and mint breath, of early morning _I love you_'s, and greedy hands touching and roaming to make sure he was real and not just another corporeal hallucination. He stood in a sharp movement that cracked several joints and brought a soreness to the curve of his neck as he looked over the still body of Selina Kyle laid out on a hospital bed — too still to be the energetic woman she'd always been, too pale to look even remotely alive. The car crash right after the crime spree had taken too much from him. It had taken the love of his life, the smiles, the kisses he'd shared only with her. It had taken everything Selina and left him with an empty body that only looked like her. But it had taken too long for the light in her eyes to fade as she fell into a coma. It had taken months of her desperate fighting to stay alive, months of agony and months where she sometimes looked at Jonathan without seeing him. She was too deep in the arms of death for him to stop it, and he knew it all too well. The clock struck nine, and bloodshot blue eyes came to rest wearily on the ashen hand encased in his own. It was time.

He stooped and pressed one last kiss to cold lips that reminded him too morbidly of what it would be like to kiss a corpse, pressed one last touch to fingers he'd never feel again, pressed one last _it's alright_ into the seams of her hair, and then Jonathan was standing again. He was closing the door of the hospital room behind him to tell the nurses to stop the life support; his throat closed and his tongue leaden with the three little words he hadn't gotten to say to her enough times while she was still with him, heavy with the realization that he'd taken this vivacious minx of a woman for granted — because who ever stayed for people like him? Certainly not women like her. He hadn't expected to have had so long with her either; people like them either died in the resulting fires of their crooked deeds or died laughing behind cell bars. He hadn't expected to be so lucky to have those ten years full of late night conversations over tea or to be the envy of Bruce Wayne (though he denied it) when he and his lovely wife occasionally showed up at galas (he as the straight-faced doctor, she as the beautiful socialite). They had been quite the eccentric pair, the Scarecrow and the Cat, one who spread his art and one who took art with flair — but he'd actually experienced something akin to happiness. He hadn't expected to.

His plodding feet brought him to a separate ward of the hospital, where hushed voices and shrill wails assaulted his senses as he stopped by a bassinet labelled with his last name and looked down at the infant inside. He dipped down to pick the child up, holding her close and cradling her to his chest; inhaling the subtle scent of lavender oil and… and her mother's cinnamon kisses. His daughter had been born three months premature in the final month that Selina had had enough energy to go through surgery — and she'd been the light of her mother's life. And then Selina had slipped into unending sleep and Jonathan had been left to alternating long hours between his wife's bedside and his daughter's incubator. Jonathan's hands shook just slightly as he lifted the solemn baby to meet his gaze; she had the beginnings of her mother's hair, and her mother's nose, but they were his blue eyes that looked back at him with innocent curiosity. No, he had had no expectations for his wife — and he wouldn't either with this tiny girl that was his daughter. No, Jonathan mused as he pressed three little words into the soft down of the infant's curls, he had no expectations for little Jemima, and he hoped to god that from wherever Selina was in the afterlife that she knew how deeply it had struck him that it had been those three words — the last thing that she'd said to him — that had killed her.

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**A/N**: Right. So I haven't uploaded in... half a year? A year tops. My apologies – I've been on tumblr and I've moved pretty much all my roleplaying there as well. I've had incredible writer's block for a long time regarding all my other 'fics. And I'm sorry about that too. I swear once I get back on track for those that I'll finish them up ASAP.

In the meantime, here's a 2000+ word drabble/ficlet I wrote for the catcrow pairing, also known as the Jonathan Crane/Selina Kyle pairing. I've fallen in love roleplaying this couple, and so I sat myself down and wrote this at the hour of three in the morning. It paid off - and I gave this to my lovely friend Molly (who plays my Jon) to beta. Good reviews all around, so I'm posting this here. Love you all, and thank you for sticking around. xx


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